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BIBLE BULWARKS. 





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BIBLE BULWARKS; 



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A SEVENFOLD ARGUMENT 



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BY,/ 

REV. RICHARD NEWTON, D.D., 

RECTOR OF THE CHURCH OF THE EPIPHANY, PHILADELPHIA. 



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PHILADELPHIA : 

AMERICAN SUNDAY-SCHOOL UNION, 

1 1 22 Chestnut Street. 




New York : Nos. 8 & 10 Bible House, Astor Place. 






Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1875, by th 

AMERICAN SUNDAY-SCHOOL UNION, 

In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. 



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J. FAGAN t SON. 
STEREOTYPE F0UNDER8, 

PHILADELPHIA. ^ 

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Printed by Henry B. Ashmead. 




CONTENTS. 



PACB 

INTRODUCTORY 7 

FORTRESS NUMBER ONE . . . 15 

Language 16 

The Idea of a God 18 

Provision for our Temporal Necessities . 19 

Temporal Guidance . . . . . 21 

FORTRESS NUMBER TWO .... 24 

Greece and Rome 25 

Modern Examples 27 

The Jewish Nation 29 

FORTRESS NUMBER THREE . . . 31 

Paul's Experience 32 

A Practical Test 36 

The Dying Soldier 37 

FORTRESS NUMBER FOUR ... 41 
1* v 



VI CONTENTS. 

PAGE 

FORTRESS NUMBER FIVE .... 53 
The Weakness of the Agents employed 54 
Uncompromising Claims . . . . 55 
Unsustained by Human Authority . . 56 
The most Bitter and Unrelenting Perse- 
cution 57 

Triumphed over all Opposition . . 59 

FORTRESS NUMBER SIX .... 61 

The fulfilled Prophecies of the Bible 61 

FORTRESS NUMBER SEVEN ... 72 
The Marvellous Preservation of the Jew- 
ish People 72 

Think what We have in the Bible . . 89 




BIBLE BULWARKS. 



INTRODUCTORY. 

THE Jews were a very patriotic peo- 
ple, and it is not surprising that 
they were so ; for no people ever had so 
wondrous a national history as theirs was. 
The great Ruler of the universe never 
interfered so manifestly and marvellously 
in behalf of any other nation as He did 
for Israel. The Jew, therefore, had a 
broad and strong foundation on which to 
build up his patriotism. 

And no other people ever had so 
strong a feeling of attachment for the 

7 



8 BIBLE BULWARKS. 

capital city of their nation as the Jew 
had for Jerusalem. And this feeling had 
the same foundation as that on which 
his patriotism rested. Jerusalem was, 
indeed, " beautiful for situation/' with 
"the mountains standing round about" 
it. But it was not its natural beauty, 
or the advantageousness of its position, 
which gave rise to the peculiar reverence 
with which the Jew regarded it. This 
feeling- grew out of the clear connection 
of that city w T ith the plans and purposes 
of the Most High. Of Jerusalem it had 
been written, " glorious things are spoken 
of thee, thou city of our God." Jehovah 
had said respecting it: "This shall be 
my rest forever : here will I dwell, for I 
have delight therein." 

We cannot wonder, therefore, at the 
feeling of profound reverence with which 
Jerusalem was regarded by the Jews. 
And it was under the influence of this 
feeling — a compound of patriotism and 
piety — that we find the royal Psalmist 



BIBLE BULWARKS. 9 

saying : " Walk about Zion, and go round 
about her : tell the towers thereof. Mark 
ye well her bulwarks." Ps. xlviii. 12, 13. 

And when the Jew was complying with 
this injunction : when he was " walking 
about Zion," or Jerusalem ; when he was 
" marking well her bulwarks," it was an 
interesting position which he occupied. 
He was examining the ground of his 
trust — the foundation of his confidence — 
as he settled down firmly in the convic- 
tion that Jerusalem was a strong city ; 
and that he was acting in accordance 
with the highest wisdom, as he came 
deliberately to the conclusion that it was 
a safe place in which to lay up his dear- 
est treasures, and to intrust his very 
life. 

And what Jerusalem was to the Jew, 
in this respect, the Bible is to the Chris- 
tian. It is the ground of his confidence — 
the rock of his hope — the fortress to 
which he turns for defence, in the hour 
of danger, and for comfort in time of 



IO BIBLE BULWARKS. 



trouble. The important question that 
arises here is, What is the strength of 
this fortress ? This is the question we 
are now to discuss. In compliance with 
the Psalmist's recommendation, we pro- 
pose to walk about this citadel of our 
hopes for eternity, marking the strength 
of its bulwarks, and candidly and care- 
fully considering the claims it has upon 
our confidence, and the reasons why we 
should retreat to it, and seek a refuge 
within its sheltering walls. 

Though going back to the Psalmist 
for the title of this unpretending little 
book, yet the form into which the argu- 
ment is thrown was suggested by the 
plan of defence adopted for the city of 
Paris. That gay capital of the fashion- 
able world is surrounded by walls, so 
lofty and strong, as to have made it 
altogether impregnable before the days 
of modern artillery. But outside of these 
walls it has a series of forts, constructed 
in accordance with the most approved 



BIBLE BULWARKS. II 

principles of modern engineering skill. 
These forts are so situated that the guns 
upon them entirely command all the in- 
tervening spaces between them. Thus 
Paris can at any time be surrounded by 
a wall of fire, protecting it on every side, 
and leaving no point where an enemy 
can approach it with impunity. 

The volume of Revelation is such " a 
strong city." In the character of the 
truths it makes known to us we find the 
walls that surround it. Beyond these 
there are outlying fortresses, which con- 
stitute the bulwarks. To mark these 
bulwarks, and so ascertain the real 
strength of the central citadel, is our 
present purpose. There are seven of 
these fortresses. Seven was considered 
by the Jews as the number that denoted 
perfection. Our walk among these bul- 
warks will show us how perfect is the 
strength that marks the great citadel of 
revealed truth. 

Before starting on our walk among 



12 BIBLE BULWARKS. 

these bulwarks of the Bible, let me call 
attention to the real difference that exists 
between the man who receives the Bible 
as a revelation from God, and the man 
who rejects it. This difference lies, not 
in the fact that the one believes anything, 
while the other believes nothing ; but 
that one believes many things, while the 
other believes more than he. The faith 
of the one, grasps a system which has 
many difficulties connected with it, while 
the faith of the other, grasps a system 
that involves incomparably greater diffi- 
culties. 

I do not deny that there are difficul- 
ties, many and great, connected with the 
Bible. It is not my present purpose to 
say a word in any attempt to lessen or 
remove those difficulties. I admit them 
in all their number and greatness. But I 
maintain that the connection of these diffi- 
culties with the Bible constitutes no argu- 
ment against it. For is there any science, 
within the range of our investigation, in 



BIBLE BULWARKS. 13 

which difficulties are not found ? Some 
of these are inexplicable on any known 
principles, and perfectly incomprehen- 
sible by the human intellect. Are there 
no difficulties in medicine? None in 
law? None in philosophy? Or in the 
occurrences of ordinary life ? And yet 
no man is so irrational as to infer that 
there can be no truth in medicine, or in 
law, or in history, or in philosophy, or in 
science, because there are depths in them 
which the plumb-line of human reason 
is unable to fathom, and difficulties which 
the human intellect fails utterly to ex- 
plain. The Bible claims to be a book 
revealing the character of an infinite 
God. It tells us of His plans and pur- 
poses. These run back to the depths 
of an eternity past — and on through 
the interminable ages of an eternity to 
come. They are plans and purposes 
connected with the affairs of an un- 
bounded universe. 

We do expect to find difficulties in 



H 



BIBLE BULWARKS. 



such a book. God's character could not 
be what the Bible tells us it is, if there 
were not many things about it which we 
can no more understand than the infant 
in its mother's arms can understand 
the most abstruse principles of political 
economy, of philosophy, or astronomy. 




SURVEYING THE FORTRESSES. 



AND now let us start on our walk 
among the outlying bulwarks of 
the Bible. We may begin by consider- 
ing 

FORTRESS NUMBER ONE. 

The antecedent probability of a revela- 
tion furnishes the material for the con- 
struction of this fortress. 

The Bible claims to be a revelation 
from God. If it is not so, then we have 
no such revelation. In rejecting the 
Bible, we must believe that God has left 
our world without any revelation of His 
will, or any knowledge of Himself. But 
however great the difficulties connected 

15 



l6 BIBLE BULWARKS. 

with the Bible may be, they are as noth- 
ing compared with those that meet us, 
when we reject this blessed book, and 
suppose that God has made no revelation 
of Himself to men. Let us glance for 
a moment at some of the things that 
God has done for man, with a view of 
promoting his comfort and happiness in 
this life, and then we shall understand 
how strong is the antecedent probability 
that He would not leave him without 
some revelation, designed to promote 
his welfare, in the life to come. God 
has taught man language. He has re- 
vealed to him the idea of a God. He 
has made provision for his temporal neces- 
sities. He has furnished him with the 
means of temporal guidance. Let us 
briefly examine these several particulars 
in detail. To begin with, there is 

LANGUAGE. 

Where does the power of language 
come from ? It is not a natural power. 



BIBLE BULWARKS. \J 

The fact has been proved by experiment, 
again and again, that a child left to itself, 
without instruction in this respect, will 
never learn to speak. The power of 
uttering articulate, intelligible sounds, is 
not an intuitive power. The child must 
have a teacher, or he will never learn to 
speak. But our first parents, at the time 
of their creation, were only like children 
of a larger growth. The power of speech 
was no more natural to them than it is 
to us, or to any of their offspring. It 
follows, then, inevitably, that God, at the 
time of their creation, must have made 
a revelation to them ; or must have 
given them instruction in the use of vocal 
sounds. He must have taught them 
how to speak. And if in a matter of 
this kind God did reveal to man what 
his temporal interest required, how 
strong the antecedent probability be- 
comes, that when our highest welfare, 
for time and for eternity, made a reve- 



15 BIBLE BULWARKS. 

lation necessary, God would give that 
revelation ? Consider next 

THE IDEA OF A GOD. 

Where did the first idea of a Divine 
Being come from, without a revelation ? 
This is not natural to man, any more 
than the power of speech is. There are 
no innate ideas of God in the human 
mind. Left to itself, the child will never 
have any ideas of God. But we do have 
such ideas. Men everywhere have them. 
Then where do they come from ? We 
must be taught them. We receive them 
from our parents and teachers. They 
come to us handed down from one gene- 
ration to another. And thus we can 
trace the stream of these ideas back 
from age to age, even up to the time of 
our first parents. And then the ques- 
tion comes — where did they get them 
from? Ideas of God were no more 
natural to them than they are to their 
descendants. They had no power to 



BIBLE BULWARKS. 19 

originate them. They must have re- 
ceived them from some source, out of 
themselves. Admit the idea that God 
made a revelation of Himself, and it is 
all clear. But reject the Bible : — deny 
that God ever made a revelation of Him- 
self, and it is impossible to account for 
the idea of a Divine Being, which we 
find universal among our race. And, if 
God has revealed the fact of His own 
existence, is there not the very strongest 
probability that He should also reveal 
the nature of that existence? and the 
way in which we are to worship and 
serve Him? And then consider what 
has been done in the way of making 

PROVISION FOR OUR TEMPORAL NECESSITIES. 

It must be admitted that this has been 
done. A full and abundant provision we 
have in the plenty which the earth brings 
forth. It is admitted that He has made 
provision for the wants ©f our minds. 
He has done this in the power of thought 



20 BIBLE BULWARKS. 

bestowed on us, and the themes furnished 
on which thought may employ itself. It 
is admitted that He has made provision 
for the wants of all His creatures. Na- 
ture is full of evidences and illustrations 
of this fact. Take a simple example, out 
of multitudes that might be selected. 
Here is a grain of wheat. We put it in 
the ground. Moistened by the rain, and 
warmed by the sun, the little germ within 
it soon starts into life. In the tender- 
ness of its infant being, it needs a very 
delicate kind of food. The soil around 
it cannot yield this. But look within the 
folds of the husks that enwrap that germ. 
There, you see, inclosed a delicate, starch- 
like substance. This is just what the 
germ needs. It was put there on purpose 
to meet this stage of the germ's growth. 
It does meet it exactly. The young 
germ lives on that, till it grows strong 
enough to throw aside the husks, and 
start out to find its nourishment in the 
soil around it. And such provision, or 



BIBLE BULWARKS. 21 

something corresponding to it, for the 
wants of living creatures, we find has 
been made through all the vegetable 
and animal kingdom. In addition, we 
find means provided for our 

TEMPORAL GUIDANCE. 

We have occasion to cross the ocean. 
We need a guide. Yonder polar star is 
peeping up over the north for our use. 
And then, besides this, we need an un- 
erring finger, to point out for us the way 
across the trackless waste of waters. 
God gives that trembling little needle its 
wonderful magnetic power of turning 
always to the north. We can take this 
in our hands and go all round the world 
of waters. 

In view of these facts, it must be ad- 
mitted that God has provided bountifully 
for all the necessities of His inferior creat- 
ures—of tree, and plant, and flower, 
and grain — of beast, and bird, and fowl, 
and worm, and creeping thing. 



22 BIBLE BULWARKS. 

It must be admitted that God has pro- 
vided bountifully for man's necessities, so 
far as the lower elements of his nature 
are concerned. The body is provided 
for, and so is the mind. But the soul, — 
that spark of immortality, — that death- 
less principle which gives worth to every- 
thing else about him ; the soul, — that 
crown of man's creation, — that jewel in 
the ring of man's being, He has left with- 
out any provision at all. 

When we have to journey over the 
oceans of this world, we look up, — and 
there is a pole-star to guide us. We look 
around, and there is a compass fitted up 
for us. But when we find ourselves em- 
barked on the great ocean of life, and wish 
to know how we must steer our course, so 
as to reach the haven of eternal rest — 
there is no provision made for us. We 
look up — and the heavens above us are 
black as night. There is no friendly star 
to shed one cheering ray. We look 
around us, — but there is none to help. 



BIBLE BULWARKS. 23 

Neither chart nor compass is provided 
for us. We must make our way in the 
dark — uncheered, unaided, and un- 
blessed. 

Now, I know not how it may strike 
others ; but, for myself, I am free to con- 
fess, that were the difficulties connected 
with the Bible a thousand-fold greater 
than they are, I would rather meet 
them, and try to master them, than go 
forth and grapple with the difficulties 
that must be encountered, when we deny 
that God has made any revelation of 
Himself to men. 

And so, in this first fortress, of the 
antecedent probability of a revelation, 
we find a strong bulwark of defence for 
the Bible. 





FORTRESS NUMBER TWO. 



THE material for this fortress is found 
in the different views of the Divine 
character held by those nations who have 
had Bible teaching on the subject, and those 
who have not. 

In rejecting the Bible as a revelation 
from God, we are of course obliged to 
take the ground, that God has never 
made a revelation of Himself to man. 
And, starting with this assumption, we 
shall not hesitate to admit that one na- 
tion will have no natural advantage over 
another in regard to the point now be- 
fore us. For, other things being equal, 

we should expect to find that just in pro- 

24 



BIBLE BULWARKS. 2$ 

portion as education, intelligence, culti- 
vation, and refinement prevailed among 
particular nations, their ideas of God 
would be exalted, — and their views of 
His character marked by purity, eleva- 
tion, and sublimity. 

Among barbarous heathen tribes, and 
nations low in the scale of civilization, 
we should not be surprised to find low 
and degrading ideas prevailing respect- 
ing the gods they worshipped, if they 
had any rites of worship at all ; but, 
among the nations favored with the full- 
est civilization, and where the arts and 
sciences were flourishing in perfection, 
we should expect to find the most ex- 
alted views of the divine character pre- 
vailing, accompanied with a creed the 
most elevated, and a worship the most 
pure. But what are the facts of the 
case? 

GREECE AND ROME. 

Look at the Greeks and Romans in 
the palmiest days of their civilization 

3 



26 BIBLE BULWARKS. 

and refinement. Look at them in the 
days when Homer, and Hesiod, and 
Sophocles, and Plato, and Socrates, and 
Cicero were living ; — when poetry, and 
history, and philosophy, and eloquence, 
and sculpture, and painting were work- 
ing wonders and winning laurels which 
have never been surpassed, and scarcely 
equalled since. They had no Bible. But, 
on the supposition that revelation is not 
necessary, and that as men rise in gen- 
eral intelligence they will rise in views 
of the Divine character, we should ex- 
pect to find a very exalted system of 
theology prevailing among the Greeks 
and Romans. But was it so ? Alas ! how 
far from this was the real state of the 
case ! Among the gods which those en- 
lightened nations worshipped were some 
of the greatest monsters that could be im- 
agined. Mercury was a thief; but because 
he was an expert thief, he was enrolled 
among the gods. Bacchus was a drunken 
sensualist. Venus was a miserable har- 



BIBLE BULWARKS. 2J 

lot. Mars was a sanguinary savage, 
glorying in battle and blood. And there 
is not one lust that nestles in the human 
heart, nor one vice that deforms and 
depraves the human character, which 
was not positively deified, and made to 
take its place among the gods that fig- 
ured in the proud Pantheon of Rome. 

MODERN EXAMPLES. 

But it may be said that this is going 
very far back for an illustration. Very 
well. Then let us take a modern nation. 
There are the Hindoos. They are a 
highly cultivated people. In mathemat- 
ical science they are among the most 
accomplished people in the world. They 
are supposed to be the inventors of some 
of the highest branches of this study. 
The discovery of the mariner's compass 
and of gunpowder are clearly attributable 
to the Chinese. Moreover, the Hindoos 
have all our English literature. They 
have our Shakespeare, our Milton, our 



28 BIBLE BULWARKS. 

Addison, and our Johnson, all trans- 
lated into Hindostanee, all studied with 
interest, and read with admiration. But 
the Hindoos have no Bible. If a reve- 
lation be not necessary, and if it be 
true that, as men rise in general intel- 
ligence, they will rise in their views of 
the character of God, then we should ex- 
pect to find among the Hindoos a system 
of theology very pure and very elevating. 
But is it so ? Go, ask this question of 
the three hundred and thirty millions of 
gods of which India boasts. There are 
gods in every grove, and every house. 
Not long ago a missionary saw a sign, 
in one of those crowded cities, with this 
inscription : " Gods made and mended 
here." Snakes, serpents, lizards, and 
crocodiles, and even productions of the 
vegetable kingdom, are worshipped in 
India. Here is this great intelligence 
and high cultivation on the one hand, and 
yet connected with it on the other, all that 
is most degrading in the fearful theology 
and terrible idolatry of the people. 



BIBLE BULWARKS. 29 

THE JEWISH NATION. 

And now, in contrast with these highly- 
cultivated people, whether of ancient or 
modern times, just look at the Jewish 
nation. There was no science among 
them, and very little cultivation. They 
never had a poet like Homer; nor a 
sculptor like Praxiteles ; nor a painter 
like Apelles. The fine arts never flour- 
ished among them. They were a rustic 
and illiterate people. But look at their 
theology. See what ideas they had of 
the nature and character of God. They 
worshipped Him as an infinitely pure 
and holy Being — as a God of love. The 
sketch of His character which they most 
prized proclaimed Him as, "The Lord 
God, merciful and gracious : long-suffer- 
ing, and slow to anger : and forgiving 
iniquity, transgression, and sin." What 
a divine portraiture this is ! Search 
through all the nations — India, China, 
Rome, Greece, Egypt, Persia, Assyria, 
Babylon — back through all the past, 



30 BIBLE BULWARKS. 

and you will find nothing to compare 
with this, as a representation of the God- 
head. And how is this to be accounted 
for ? How does it happen, that among 
the most refined and cultivated nations 
of the earth, whether in ancient or mod- 
ern times, you never find, where they are 
left without a Bible, any idea of a God 
but what is degrading and defiling ; while 
among the people who have the Bible, 
though without either refinement or cul- 
tivation, you find the only views of the 
divine character, to be met with in the 
world, worthy at all of the Great Being 
who governs the universe ? If the Bible 
be God's revelation of Himself, it is all 
plain enough. But if God has given no 
such revelation, then here is a difficulty 
which the rejectors of the Bible will find 
it very hard to get rid of. 

And thus we see how the facts con- 
nected with this point of our subject, 
make a fortress of great strength in sup- 
port of the citadel of revealed truth. 




FORTRESS NUMBER THREE. 



THIS is a bulwark built not of wood 
or stone, but, as it were, a regular 
earthwork, on which it is impossible to 
make any impression. It is formed from 
a proper consideration of the wonderful 
power, put forth by the Bible, to sustain 
and comfort men in discharging the duties 
and grappling with the trials of life. 

That there is such a power, account 
for it as you may, is a fact, no more to 
be called in question than the fact that 
the sun shines at noonday. To say that 
it is a delusion, will not do ; for we see 
it put forth under circumstances where 

31 



32 BIBLE BULWARKS. 

the idea of a delusion is perfectly pre- 
posterous. 

PAULS EXPERIENCE. 

Take the case of the apostle Paul, as 
affording a good illustration of the nature 
of this power, and of the way in which 
it operates. 

Paul was a Jew. As a Pharisee he 
belonged to the strictest and straightest 
sect of that religion. And among the 
men of that strict sect he was one of the 
strictest. He was exceedingly strong in 
his prejudices. But he was thoroughly 
sincere, and honest, in those prejudices. 
And men of this stamp are not apt to 
change their views, when such a change 
is to alter the whole course of their lives, 
without the most deep and thorough con- 
viction in reference to them. Paul had 
just such a conviction, before he made 
this change. And it was not possible 
for him to be mistaken on the subject. 
The facts that produced conviction were 



BIBLE BULWARKS. 33 

all plain and palpable facts. They were 
all within his reach. He was perfectly 
conversant with them. The life of Jesus 
had been spent in and around Jerusalem. 
The death, and burial, and resurrection 
of Jesus had all taken place just there. 
He was on the spot now himself. The 
evidence of the system, on which its 
whole future depended, was all before 
him. He could examine it for himself. 
Examining evidence was his special busi- 
ness. He was at home there. If there 
was a flaw, or weak part, anywhere, he 
would be very quick to discover it. But 
he found no flaw in the argument on 
which the gospel of Jesus rested — no 
single, weak, or broken link in the chain 
of evidences by which it was supported. 
A clearer, stronger mind than that of 
Paul's was never called upon to examine 
evidence, and give a decision in regard 
to a case like this. And there was noth- 
ing to disturb or interfere with the calm, 
clear exercise of his mind and judgment 



34 BIBLE BULWARKS. 

Every motive that could have weight, 
with such a mind, was on the side of his 
old views and opinions. He had nothing 
to gain, but everything to lose, from a 
worldly point of view, if he changed his 
mind on the subject before him. His 
honor, his position, his influence, his 
property, his ease, his temporal comfort, 
were all involved in the change he was 
preparing to make. Yet he made that 
change. The consequence was that he 
endured the loss of all things. Poverty, 
disgrace, exposure, toil, persecutions, 
and imprisonments, from the very start, 
made up the only prospect he had before 
him in life, — and that life to end only in a 
violent death. This was the experience 
that awaited Paul, when he made that 
change. He knew it all before making 
it. Yet he deliberately made the change, 
and never regretted it. Such was the 
power of the gospel to give him sup- 
port and comfort in the service of 
Christ, that with the loss of all things 



BIBLE BULWARKS. 35 

he felt himself an infinite gainer, in the 
experience of that power. This power 
sustained him all through his arduous 
course, and carried him in triumph to 
meet a martyr's death. 

Now, the course of such a man is a 
mystery, inexplicable, if you reject the 
Bible. But if the Bible be true, if it be 
God's revelation of Himself, and of the 
glorious reward laid up for those who 
serve Him, then the mystery is solved. 

And there has been no failure, since 
Paul's day, of this power of the gospel 
to sustain and comfort men, under the 
duties and trials of life. It is not a 
stream that was flowing once, but has 
run itself out. It is not a channel that 
was full once, but is now left dry, like 
the bed of a mountain torrent amidst the 
heats of summer. It has been doing for 
men, down through all the ages, just 
what it did for Paul, and it is doing the 
same still. Take one or two illustra- 
tions. 



36 BIBLE BULWARKS. 

A PRACTICAL TEST. 

Some time ago, an advocate of infidel- 
ity had been lecturing on that subject in 
a village in the north of England. At the 
close of his lecture he challenged discus- 
sion, and invited any persons present to 
ask whatever questions they wished to 
have answered. The challenge was ac- 
cepted by an old woman, dressed in an 
antiquated style, and bending under the 
weight of years and infirmities. 

Looking towards the lecturer, she said, 
in a respectful manner: "Sir, there is 
one question I would like to ask you." 

" Well, my good woman, what is it ? " 

" Ten years ago," she said, " I was left 
a widow, with eight children, utterly un- 
provided for, and nothing to call my own, 
but this Bible. By its direction, and look- 
ing to God for His help and blessing, I 
have been able to support myself and 
family, in respectability and comfort. I 
am now tottering on the borders of the 
grave ; but I am perfectly happy, because 



BIBLE BULWARKS. 37 

I am looking forward to a life of im- 
mortality and glory with Jesus in heaven. 
This is what my religion has done for 
me. Now let me ask you, what has 
your way of thinking done for you ? " 

"Well, my good lady," rejoined the 
lecturer, "I don't want to disturb your 
comfort ; but — " 

" Oh ! that 's not the question/' inter- 
posed the woman ; "keep to the point, 
sir. What has your way of thinking 
done for you ? " 

The infidel tried to evade this issue, 
but the plain common sense of the audi- 
ence found expression in a spontaneous 
burst of applause, over the practical logic 
involved in the good old Christian's un- 
answerable argument, which drove him 
discomfited from the field. 

THE DYING SOLDIER. 

" Put me down," said a wounded Prus- 
sian, at Sedan, to his comrades who were 
carrying him from the field ; " don't take 

4 



38 BIBLE BULWARKS. 

the trouble to carry me any further ; I 'm 
dying !" 

They laid him down beneath the shade 
of a tree, by the roadside, and returned 
to the battle. 

Very soon an officer came by. He 
saw the man weltering in his blood, and 
kindly said : " Can I do anything for you, 
my poor fellow ? " 

" Nothing, thank you." 

" Shall I get you a little water ? " said 
the kind-hearted officer. 

" No, thank you ; I 'm dying." 

" Is there nothing I can do for you ? 
Shall I write to your friends ? " 

" I have no friends that you can write 
to. But there is just one thing for which 
I will be much obliged. In my knapsack 
is a Testament. Please open it at the 
fourteenth chapter of John. Near the 
end of the chapter you will find a verse 
beginning with ' Peace/ I will thank you 
to read me that verse." 

The officer took out the Testament, 



BIBLE BULWARKS. 39 

turned to the chapter, and read the words, 
" Peace I leave with you, my peace I give 
unto you: not as the world giveth, give 
I unto you. Let not your heart be 
troubled, neither let it be afraid ! " 

" Thank you, sir," said the dying man. 
" I have that peace ; I am going to that 
Saviour ; God is with me ; I want no 
more." 

These were his last words, and his 
spirit ascended to be with Him " whom, 
having not seen, he loved." 

Now, if the Bible be true — if it be 
God's revelation of Himself, and the 
glory of His presence, as the portion of 
His people forever, then we can under- 
stand such cases as these. They are all 
plain enough. But if we reject the Bible, 
then in the power which has been exerted 
by it, down through all the ages, and the 
power which we find it exerting still — a 
power that strengthens men for the hard- 
est duties, and comforts them under the 
sternest trials of life, we are encountered 



40 BIBLE BULWARKS. 

by a difficulty which no man can ex- 
plain. 

Come and take your stand with me by 
the side of Niagara's thundering flood. 
When we know, and admit, that lying 
back of that peerless cataract there exists 
a mighty series of stupendous lakes, 
we find it easy enough to account for 
Niagara. In the outflowing waters of 
those vast lakes, we have an adequate 
cause, for the effect we find produced in 
the unceasing rush and roar of that chief 
of nature's wonders, the Falls of Niagara. 
But, deny the existence of those back- 
lying lakes, and it will be easier to tell 
where the waters of Niagara come from, 
than it is to account for the supporting 
power of the Bible, when we deny that 
it comes from God. 

Certainly there is great strength in 
this bulwark of the Bible. 




FORTRESS NUMBER FOUR. 



THIS has a very substantial look. 
On a close examination, we find 
that it has been wrought out of the testi- 
mony borne to the excellence and divinity 
of the Bible, by many of the best and wisest 
men in every age. 

It is a fact which cannot be called in 
question, that such testimony has been 
borne, by men of this very class. Never 
was a position more utterly false and un- 
tenable than that which the enemies of 
the Bible would assume, when they seek 
to convey the impression that only the 
ignorant, and the weak-minded, are found 
among the friends and supporters of the 
4* 41 



42 BIBLE BULWARKS. 

Bible. In every age the friends and ad- 
vocates of this blessed book have been 
found among those entitled to the high- 
est respect in all the diversified walks of 
life. The profoundest scholars and the 
ablest thinkers, the men of clearest intel- 
lects, the men whose minds have been 
furnished with the amplest stores of learn- 
ing and wisdom, have been ever ready to 
pay their devout homage to the Bible. 

Just look for a moment at some of the 
varied testimonies borne by men of this 
class. 

Sir Matthew Hale, the Chief Justice 
of England, gave this advice to his chil- 
dren : 

" Every morning read seriously and 
reverentially a portion of the Holy Scrip- 
tures. There is no book like the Bible, 
for excellent learning, wisdom, and use." 
Robert Boyle, the Christian philosopher 
of the seventeenth century, said : " The 
Bible is among books what the diamond 
is among jewels, — the most precious and 



BIBLE BULWARKS. 43 

sparkling ; the most apt to scatter light, 
and yet the best to make impressions/' 

Milton, the grandest of poets, and the 
purest of statesmen, says : " God has or- 
dained His gospel to be the revelation 
of His power and wisdom in Jesus Christ. 
There are no songs comparable to the 
songs of Zion ; no orations equal to 
those of the prophets ; and no politics 
like those which the Scriptures teach." 

Sir Isaac Newton, the prince of philos- 
ophers and astronomers, with intellect 
enough to supply almost a generation 
of ordinary men, said : " We account the 
Scriptures of God to be the most sublime 
philosophy. I find more sure marks of 
authenticity in the Bible than in any pro- 
fane history whatever." 

Lord Bacon said : "Thy creatures have 
been my books, O God, but thy Scrip- 
tures more. I have sought Thee in the 
garden and the fields, but I have found 
Thee in Thy temple." 

Doctor Samuel Johnson, one of the 



44 BIBLE BULWARKS. 

greatest prodigies of learning that ever 
lived, to a young friend who visited him 
on his death-bed, said: "Young man, 
listen to the voice of one who has pos- 
sessed a certain degree of fame in this 
world, and who will shortly appear before 
his Maker ; read the Bible every day of 
your lifeT 

When our own great Doctor Franklin 
lay upon his death-bed, he was visited by a 
young man who had great respect for his 
judgment in all things. He had enter- 
tained doubts as to the truth of the Scrip- 
tures, and thought this would be a suit- 
able opportunity to get the opinion of 
the great philosopher on this most im- 
portant subject. He introduced it ac- 
cordingly, in a serious and becoming 
manner, and asked the dying man what 
were his sentiments as to the truth of 
the Scriptures. When the question was 
put to him, although in a very weak 
state, and near his end, he replied: 
" Young man, my advice to you is, that 



BIBLE BULWARKS. 45 

you cultivate an acquaintance with, and 
a firm belief in, the Holy Scriptures ; this 
is your certain interest/' 

The celebrated William Penn — the 
founder of our city — gives this testi- 
mony to the Scriptures from Count Ox- 
enstein, the Chancellor of Sweden, and 
one of the most honored and distin- 
guished statesmen of that day. After 
having retired from public life, he was vis- 
ited one day by the English ambassador, 
to whom he said, in the course of conver- 
sation : " All the comfort I have, which 
is more than the whole w r orld can give, 
springs from the knowledge of God's love 
in my heart, and from reading this blessed 
book," laying his hands on the Bible. 
"You are now," he continued, " in the 
prime of your age and vigor, and in the 
full tide of prosperous business. But 
this will all leave you ; and then you will 
find that there is more wisdom, truth, 
comfort, and enjoyment in reading God's 
sacred word than in all the pleasures of 
courts, and the favors of princes." 



46 BIBLE BULWARKS. 

The late Sir William Jones, one of the 
most learned men in the world, wrote 
as follows on the blank leaf of his Bible: 
" I have regularly and attentively perused 
these Holy Scriptures, and am of the 
opinion, that this volume, independently 
of its divine origin, contains more true 
sublimity, more exquisite poetry, more 
pure morality, more important history,* 
and finer strains of poetry and eloquence, 
than can be collected from all other 
books, in whatever age or language they 
may have been written. " 

Our own distinguished Patrick Henry, 
— famous for his oratory and statesman- 
ship,— one of the brightest stars in the 
galaxy of "old Virginia's" great men — 
was found by a friend, who visited him in 
his last illness, reading the Bible. Laying 
his hand upon the volume, he said to his 
friend : " Here is a book worth more than 
all other books that were ever printed ; 
and yet, it has been my misfortune never, 
till lately, to have found time to read it 
with proper attention." 



BIBLE BULWARKS. 47 

Samasius, one of the most distin- 
guished scholars of the seventeenth cen- 
tury, said on his death-bed : " I have lost 
an immense portion of time in worthless 
study. Had I but one more year to live, 
it should be spent in studying David's 
Psalms, and Paul's Epistles." 

While lying at the point of death, Sir 
Walter Scott said to his son-in-law, Mr. 
Lockhart : " Read to me." Mr. L. said : 
"What book shall I read?" "What 
book?" said the great author — "there 
is but one book — the Bible." 

Selden, the great Oriental scholar, said: 
" Though I have been laborious in my 
literary studies, and have possessed my- 
self of a great number of valuable books 
and manuscripts, upon all ancient sub- 
jects, yet I can rest the happiness of my 
soul on no one of them except the Holy 
Scriptures." 

Goethe, the celebrated German poet, 
said: 

" It is a belief in the Bible, the fruits 



48 BIBLE BULWARKS. 

of deep meditation, which has served me 
as the guide of my moral and literary 
life. I have found it a capital safely in- 
vested, and richly productive of interest." 

John Ouincy Adams, our own distin- 
guished statesman, patriot, and presi- 
dent, in an address to a literary society 
of young men, said : 

" I speak as a man of the world to 
men of the world ; and I say to you, Search 
the Sadphires! If you tire of them in 
seeking a rule of faith and a standard of 
morals, search them as records of history. 
The Bible contains the only authentic in- 
troduction to the history of the world. It 
is a book which neither the weakest and 
most ignorant, nor the most intelligent 
and learned mind can read without im- 
provement." 

Perhaps there never was a lawyer and 
statesman, in this country, or any other, 
possessed of a clearer, stronger, and 
more commanding intellect, than our 
own great Daniel Webster. 



BIBLE BULWARKS. 49 

To a young friend, who was one day 
admiring the poetry of the Bible, he said : 
" Ah ! my friend, the poetry of Isaiah, 
and Job, and Habakkuk is beautiful, in- 
deed ; but, when you have lived, as I 
have, sixty-nine years, you will give more 
for the fourteenth or seventeenth chap- 
ters of John's Gospel, or for one of the 
Epistles, than for all the poetry of the 
Bible. I have read it through many times. 
I now make it a practice of going through 
it once a year ; and I pity the man who 
cannot find in it a rich supply of thought 
and rules for conduct/' 

"The Bible," said Chancellor Kent, 
" is equally adapted to the wants and in- 
firmities of every human being. Its doc- 
trines, its discoveries, its code of morals, 
and its means of grace, are not only over- 
whelming evidence of its divine origin, but 
they confound the pretensions of all other 
systems, by showing the narrow range 
and feeble efforts of human reason, even 
when under the sway of the most ex- 
5 d 



SO BIBLE BULWARKS. 

alted understanding, and enlightened by 
the accumulated treasures of science and 
learning. It brings life and immortality 
to light, which, until its publication, were 
hidden from the scrutiny of ages." 

That devout astronomer and patriotic 
general, the late lamented Prof. Mitchel, 
speaks thus : " The most wonderful vol- 
ume in existence is, beyond a doubt, the 
Bible. It is wonderful for its high pre- 
tensions, for its almost incredible claims 
to divine origin, and for its exceeding 
antiquity." So he goes on carrying this 
thought up to a very climax of wonders, 
and then concludes thus : " But it is most 
of all wonderful, that up to the present 
time, in the opinion of hundreds of thou- 
sands of the most judicious, reflecting, 
and reasoning among earth's inhabitants, 
during three thousand years since its 
first book was written, it has maintained 
its high authority, and has retained, in 
all this vast lapse of time, a powerful 
sway over the human mind." 

I conclude what I have to say on this 



BIBLE BULWARKS. 51 

point, by an extract from the celebrated 
testimony to the divinity of Christ, and 
the excellence of the Bible which con- 
tains his life, as delivered by Napoleon 
Bonaparte, in the presence of the gen- 
erals who shared his exile on the island 
of St. Helena : 

" The divinity of Christ, resting on the 
Bible, best explains the traditions preva- 
lent in the world. The nature of Christ's 
existence is mysterious, I admit ; but this 
mystery meets the wants of man : reject 
it, and the world is an inexplicable rid- 
dle, — believe it, and the history of our 
race is satisfactorily explained, 

" The Bible possesses a secret virtue 
of indescribable efficacy, a warmth which 
influences the understanding and softens 
the heart ; in meditating upon it, you feel 
as you do in contemplating the heavens. 
The Bible is more than a book ; it is a 
living thing, active, powerful, overcoming 
every obstacle in its way. See upon this 
table this book of books " — here the Em- 
peror reverently laid his hand on the 



52 BIBLE B.ULWARKS. 

Bible ; — "/ never cease reading it y and 
always with new delight!' 

Thus we see how some of the wisest 
and best men, in the different ages of the 
world, have declared their strongest confi- 
dence in the Bible, as a revelation from 
God, and their profoundest reverence for 
it. Now, to suppose that the wisest men, 
in every age, have been deceived them- 
selves, in a matter so eminently prac- 
tical, and so vitally important, is utterly 
inconceivable ; while to suppose that the 
fo/men in every age, should have agreed 
together to try and deceive others, is still 
more inconceivable. And yet these are 
some of the stupendous difficulties that 
we have to meet and grapple with, the 
moment we deny the divine origin of the 
Bible. 

And so, it must be admitted, that in the 
testimony of such men we have an im- 
pregnable fortress among the bulwarks 
of the Bible. 




FORTRESS NUMBER FIVE. 



AND how is this constructed? Con- 
siderations connected with the spread 
of the gospel in the world, and the impos- 
sibility of accounting for it, if we deny that 
it comes from God: these are the mate- 
rials employed in this bulwark of the 
Bible. 

And in trying to estimate what strength 
there is in this defence of the Bible, there 
are several things to be considered. In 
looking at the results which followed from 
the first publication of the gospel, the 
first thing to be borne in mind is : 
5* 53 



54 BIBLE BULWARKS. 

THE WEAKNESS OF THE AGENTS EMPLOYED. 

Christ chose His apostles from the 
humblest walks of life. They were men 
without learning, or position, and, with 
the exception of St. Paul, without supe- 
rior natural gifts, or endowments. They 
were humble fishermen, and plain, unlet- 
tered tax-gatherers. They had never 
been trained to public speaking. They 
knew nothing of the arts of oratory. 
They had no vivid imagination or com- 
manding eloquence. It was not by the 
force of their logic, or the power of 
their rhetoric, that they won their way, 
for of these things they had no knowl- 
edge. Their preaching, judging from 
the few specimens which have come 
down to us, was of the simplest and 
plainest character. They told, without 
adornment, the story of the life and 
death of Jesus: the purpose for which 
He died, — and the love which led Him 
to do so. These facts, with the few sim- 
ple truths connected with them, made 



BIBLE BULWARKS. 55 

up the sum and substance of their 
preaching. " Jesus Christ — and Him 
crucified" was all they had to talk about. 
Such were the agents chosen and sent 
forth to the most stupendous enterprise 
ever undertaken. Such were the agents 
appointed to overturn all the established 
systems of religion existing among men, 
and to revolutionize the world. 

And then, in the next place, we must 
consider how these feeble agents were 
sent forth to preach the gospel, one of 
whose most striking features was its 

UNCOMPROMISING CLAIMS. 

It demanded that all the idols that 
men worshipped should be hurled from 
their thrones. The God of the Bible 
could not enter the Pantheon at Rome, 
and take His place among the other so- 
called deities represented there. That 
motley crew must all be thrust out be- 
fore He could enter there. He allowed 
of no rival, and would share His suprem- 



56 BIBLE BULWARKS. 

acy with none. And the homage which 
the Bible demanded for God from men, 
was no mere act of outward and formal 
worship, but the absolute submission of 
their wills to His, and the thorough con- 
secration of their lives to His service. It 
claimed for Him the highest place in the 
affections of men, and the subjection of 
every thought to His uncompromising 
sway. There never was a system of 
religion taught so unattractive to the 
proud and selfish hearts of corrupt and 
fallen men. 

Remember, too, that fassz. feeble agents^ 
with this uncompromising gospel, went for- 
ward in their work, altogether 

UNSUSTAINED BY HUMAN AUTHORITY. 

There was no state connection for 
them to look to ; no crown to irradiate 
them ; no throne to encourage them ; 
no magistracy to aid them. On the con- 
trary, all the power and influence of this 
kind, existing in the world, was arrayed 



BIBLE BULWARKS. 57 

in opposition to them. When Mahomet 
started out to propagate his faith, he 
made no material progress till he en- 
listed this element in his cause. His 
heralds went forth with the Koran in 
one hand, and the sword in the other. 
The only choice left men was to accept 
the one, or feel the power of the other. 
And then his cause made progress. But 
it was different with the heralds of the 
Cross. The only power they had to de- 
pend on was that of the truth they 
preached, and of the God in whose name 
that truth was proclaimed. 

And these feeble agents, with their un- 
compromising gospel, and utterly unsus- 
tained by human authority, met with only 

THE MOST BITTER AND UNRELENTING 
PERSECUTION 

The loss of property and position, to 
those who had them, was the first thing 
involved in the profession of Christianity 
in its early days. And then followed 



58 BIBLE BULWARKS. 

punishment, imprisonment, torture, and 
death. For the first three hundred years 
of its history, Christianity was a perse- 
cuted religion in the Roman Empire. 
The governors and proconsuls had orders 
to destroy the Christians wherever they 
might find them. Multitudes were ap- 
prehended. The prisons and dungeons 
were crowded with them. New and un- 
heard-of tortures were invented for 
them. They were dragged at the heels 
of wild horses ; their flesh was torn 
piecemeal from them with red-hot pin- 
cers ; they were roasted over slow fires ; 
they were torn in pieces by devouring 
dogs ; they were fastened to crosses, and 
left to draw out a lingering death ; they 
were wrapt up in combustible garments, 
that, when daylight failed, they might, like 
torches, serve to dispel the gloom of 
night in the circus of the tyrant Nero. 
They were thrown to the wild beasts in 
the Coliseum, and "butchered to make 
a Roman holiday/' Houses filled with 



BIBLE BULWARKS. 59 

Christians were set on fire and burned 
to the ground; and whole droves of them 
were fastened together with ropes and 
cast into the sea. 1 7,000 were slain in 
one month ; and in ten years of the last 
persecution 144,000 Christians died by 
violence, and 700,000 in dungeons, or 
banishments, or in the public works to 
which they were condemned. 

And yet, in spite of the feebleness of its 
agents, and the unattractiveness of its doc- 
trines ; in spite of the utter absence of 
human patronage or power, and of the 
bitter persecution which it encountered — 
the gospel of Jesus 

TRIUMPHED OVER ALL OPPOSITION. 

The more it was persecuted, the more 
it prospered. It went on spreading 
rapidly, and prevailing widely, till the 
whole Roman Empire was covered with 
it ; till the once despised Cross sparkled 
in the diadem of Emperors, and the name 



60 BIBLE BULWARKS. 

of Christian came to be the ornament 
and the boast of grateful millions. 

Now, if it be admitted that Christianity 
is from God, and that His omnipotence 
was sustaining the agents employed in 
its propagation, we have at once a cause 
fully adequate to produce the effect which 
we behold in its wondrous spread. But, 
if we deny its connection with this cause, 
then in our unbelief we are left to strug- 
gle with the stupendous difficulty of at- 
tempting to solve the most stubborn and , 
insolvable problem that has ever taxed 
the energies of the human mind. 

This is a good, stout bulwark. The 
force of this argument is such that honest, 
candid minds must feel its power. A 
great practical result is here presented, 
which can only be accounted for in one 
way. The Bible must be from God. 
This explains its success. On any other 
ground, a satisfactory explanation is im- 
possible. 

We come now to 



FORTRESS NUMBER SIX. 



T 



HE materials out of which this is 
constructed are furnished by 



THE FULFILLED PROPHECIES OF THE BIBLE, 

The most impossible of all impossible 
things for unassisted man, in his feeble- 
ness, to undertake, is to foretell the 
future. We know not what a day may 
bring forth. We cannot tell what the 
next step in our journey may lead to. 
To undertake to forecast the future in 
regard to individuals, cities, or countries, 
and to enter into the detail of particulars 
that may occur to them, is the height of 
folly, and when attempted by man in his 

6 61 



62 BIBLE BULWARKS. 

ignorance, must overwhelm him with 
confusion. Yet this is just what the 
prophets of the Bible have done. Their 
predictions run through long centuries. 
They embrace a minute detail of par- 
ticulars. These refer to palpable matters 
of fact. They are spread out before the 
world. Any one who chooses may ex- 
amine them for himself, and make up his 
mind about them. There are the pre- 
dictions on the page of Scripture, like the 
figure engraven on a seal, and here are 
the facts of history to which those pre- 
dictions refer. You may lay the facts 
side by side with the predictions, and 
compare them together, just as you would 
compare the impression on the wax, with 
the engraving on the seal which has made 
it, that you may see how the one agrees 
with the other. It would require a volume 
properly to develop this one branch of 
our subject. To feel the full force of this 
argument, we ought to take the predic- 
tions of the Old Testament, one by one, 



BIBLE BULWARKS. 63 

as they refer to Christ ; the time and 
place of His birth ; the nation, and tribe, 
and family, from which He was to spring; 
the nature of His teachings; His poverty; 
His miracles; His sufferings; His death; 
His burial; His resurrection, and ascen- 
sion into heaven, and show how minutely 
these things were predicted, hundreds of 
years before He came, and the wonderful 
accuracy with which each prediction was 
accomplished. Then we ought to take 
the predictions which relate to such 
ancient cities as Babylon, and Nineveh, 
and Tyre ; to point out the strange 
peculiarities connected with the after 
history of each of them, which were 
minutely foretold, long centuries before 
they came to pass, and show how mar- 
vellously they were fulfilled, to the very 
letter. But there is not time, or space, 
for this. And then it has been often 
done before. 

But there is another illustration under 
this head that may be brought in here. 



64 BIBLE BULWARKS. 

It may be handled more briefly. And 
then it is fresher than the others. I have 
never met with it, as used in this con- 
nection. And yet it seems to me to 
carry with it more power than can be 
thrown into any other point of this argu- 
ment from prophecy. I refer here to 
Daniel's interpretation of the golden- 
headed image which Nebuchadnezzar 
saw in his vision : or, in other words, to 
Daniel's prophecy of the four successive 
universal kingdoms, which were to fol- 
low each other in the history of our 
world, until the promised kingdom of 
Christ is set up, and begins its everlast- 
ing course of glory and blessedness. 

We have the account of this vision, 
and the prophecy which interpreted it in 
the second chapter of Daniel. As the 
king saw this image, its head was of gold, 
its breast of silver, its belly and thighs 
of brass, and its legs and feet of iron and 
clay. In his interpretation of the image, 
Daniel declared that the gold, the silver, 



BIBLE BULWARKS. 65 

the brass, the iron and clay, were different 
kinofdoms which were to succeed each 
other in a certain descending series of 
deterioration, as indicated by the order 
in which the different metals are named. 
These several kingdoms are the Baby- 
lonian, the Medo-Persian, the Grecian, 
and the Roman. These different metals 
represent the most prominent peculiari- 
ties of the several nations to which they 
refer, as strikingly as though the very 
names by which they are known in his- 
tory had been applied to them respect- 
ively. The head of gold was eminently 
characteristic of the Babylonian Kingdom. 
Isaiah calls Babylon "the golden city," 
chapter xiv. 4 ; while Jeremiah speaks 
of it as " abundant in treasures," chapter 
li. 13. 

The second kingdom was to be " in- 
ferior " to the first, as silver is inferior 
to gold. This was strictly true of the 
Medo-Persian Kingdom, which succeeded 
that of Babylon. Its inferiority was seen 

6* E 



66 BIBLE BULWARKS. 

in the weakness of its rulers, and in the 
unsuccessful nature of their enterprises. 
Cambyses and Xerxes, leading monarchs 
of that kingdom, embarked in gigantic 
undertakings, which ended in disgraceful 
and mortifying failures. 

The third of these great kingdoms 
was symbolized by the brass of the im- 
age. This points to the Grecian King- 
dom, founded by Alexander the Great. 
The Greeks were distinguished by their 
brazen armor. " Brazen-coated Greeks " 
is the epithet which Homer himself re- 
peatedly applies to them. Brass is a 
metal of little strength, and, after Alex- 
ander's death, the division of his king- 
dom among his generals entailed lasting 
weakness upon it. 

The fourth kingdom was represented 
by the iron legs of the image. How 
aptly this denoted the hard endurance 
and indomitable nature of Roman valor ! 
This kingdom was to be " strong as iron, 
and as iron breaketh in pieces, and sub- 



BIBLE BULWARKS. 67 

dueth all things," so did Rome, in her 
resistless progress, break, and subdue 
all other kingdoms. And in its iron 
strength this kingdom stood for ages. 
Then it was broken up, and Europe was 
portioned out among its divided frag- 
ments. Thus the iron legs ended in the 
feet and toes, " part of iron, and part of 
miry clay." And no truer representa- 
tion of the condition of things in Europe, 
for ages past, could possibly be given 
than this mingling of strength and weak- 
ness which Daniel sets before us in the 
blending of iron and clay in the feet and 
toes of this image. 

There is nothing in history more sur- 
prising, in the accuracy of its truthful- 
ness, than the representations of this 
prophecy. How shall we account for 
it? How did Daniel find out, centuries 
beforehand, the order in which these 
kingdoms were to succeed each other? 
How was he enabled to point out, with 
such surprising accuracy, the distinctive 



68 BIBLE BULWARKS. 

characteristics which were to mark them? 
How did he know that the Medo-Persian 
Kingdom was to supplant the Babylo- 
nian? and the Grecian the Medo-Persian? 
and the Roman that of Greece ? How 
was he able, before Rome was founded, 
to concentrate in this one expressive 
word, iron, the most striking and truth- 
ful of the national characteristics of that 
surprising people? How did he know 
that, after Rome's Empire was broken 
up, there was not to be another world- 
wide, universal kingdom ? There had 
been three successive, universal em- 
pires, within the seven or eight hundred 
years preceding the era of Rome's tri- 
umph ; who told the Jewish prophet 
that, for the 1 800 years that were to fol- 
low, there should be no other kingdom 
on the same grand scale? Humanly 
speaking, Europe presented as fair a 
field for the foundation of such an em- 
pire as ever was found in Asia. The 
materials out of which to erect it were 



BIBLE BULWARKS. 69 

not wanting; neither were the political 
architects to direct and control its erec- 
tion. Charlemagne and Napoleon Bona- 
parte were rulers as wise and great, 
and warriors as brave and skilful, as 
were Nebuchadnezzar, or Cyrus, or Alex- 
ander, and yet they never succeeded in 
founding a universal empire, — long and 
ardently as they strove to do it. Why ? 
Daniel had predicted that, after Rome's 
iron rule, there should not be another 
such kingdom in the world till Christ, 
the Messiah, comes to establish his ; and 
there has been none. Instability and 
change are the features which mark all 
human governments. " Iron mixed with 
miry clay/' in blended strength and weak- 
ness, was the one expressive sentence in 
which Daniel epitomized, and crystallized, 
the political state of Europe, as it should 
exist after the breaking up of the Roman 
Empire. For long centuries past this 
has been its state. And this is precisely 
its state to-day. Daniel said it should be 



70 BIBLE BULWARKS. 

so. So it has been — and so it is. Was 
there ever anything so marvellous, and 
yet so truthful, as this ? If Daniel spoke 
under the unerring guidance of that om- 
niscient God, before whom all things are 
naked and open, and who " seeth the end 
from the beginning/' we cannot wonder at 
the more than eagle power of vision with 
which he looked through the vista of 
coming ages, and saw, and described 
things just as they have been, and are. 
If this were so, then the amazing accu- 
racy of his predictions is satisfactorily 
explained. But if unbelief is right in 
the ground it assumes to occupy ; — if 
Daniel was not God's mouthpiece ; — if 
his prophecies were not divine in their 
origin, then how shall we solve this prob- 
lem ? Where did Daniel get that knowl- 
edge of the present political state of 
Europe, which he had, almost thirty cen- 
turies ago ? How was he able to give 
this outline chart of the course which the 
nations of the earth should run, from the 



BIBLE BULWARKS. Jl 

day in which he lived to the end of time? 
— a chart which subsequent history has 
done nothing but fill up ? This argu- 
ment from prophecy shows how perfectly 
insuperable are the difficulties which rise, 
mountain-like, in the path of unbelief, the 
moment it denies the divine origin of the 
Bible. This is an impregnable bulwark. 
The heaviest artillery which infidelity can 
array against it never can shake it 

And now we come to the last fortress 
in this grand line of " Bible Bulwarks/' 
We have before us here 





FORTRESS NUMBER SEVEN. 



THE stones out of which this bul- 
wark is built up are all taken from 
one quarry. They are furnished by a 
consideration of, — 



THE MARVELLOUS PRESERVATION OF THE 
JE WISH PE OPLE. 

And there is wondrous force in this 
argument. Their continued preservation 
is foretold in many places by the proph- 
ets. There is a very striking passage in 
the book of Amos, fx. 9, which foretells 
at once their universal dispersion, and 
yet their certain preservation. "I will 

sift the house of Israel among all nations, 

72 



BIBLE BULWARKS. 73 

saith the Lord, like as corn is sifted in a 
sieve, yet shall not the least grain fall 
upon the earth." And when we bear in 
mind that for eighteen centuries they 
have been deprived of a national home, 
or organization — " abiding many days," 
as their own prophet had foretold, " with- 
out a king, and without a prince, and with- 
out a sacrifice, and without an image," 
— Hosea iii. 4, — dispersed everywhere; 
despised, oppressed, and persecuted 
everywhere, and yet preserved, through 
all the ages, a distinct and peculiar peo- 
ple, — we have a marvel here, to which 
no parallel can be found in the history of 
the world. "The Jewish people," says 
Dr. Croly, " are a nation that living shall 
die, and dying shall live ; that trampled 
by all shall trample upon all ; that bleed- 
ing from a thousand wounds shall be 
unhurt; that beggared shall wield the 
wealth of nations ; that without a name 
shall sway the counsels of kings ; that 
without a city shall inhabit in all king- 
7 



74 BIBLE BULWARKS. 

doms ; that scattered like the dust shall 
be bound together like the rock; that 
perishing by the sword, by the chain, by 
famine, by fire, shall be imperishable ; 
unnumbered, and glorious as the stars 
of heaven. " 

We can only wonder over the facts 
of their history. " Had they continued, 
from the commencement of the Christian 
era down to the present hour, in some 
such state as that in which we find the 
Chinese, walled off from the rest of the 
human family, and by their national self- 
ishness, or their repulsion of alien ene- 
mies, resisting every assault from with- 
out, in the shape of hostile invasion, and 
from an overpowering national pride, for- 
bidding the introduction of new and for- 
eign customs, we should not see so much 
that is marvellous woven in with their 
existence. But very different from this 
are the facts of the case. They are 
neither a united and independent na- 
tion, nor a parasitic province. They are 



BIBLE BULWARKS. 75 

broken into fragments, scattered and 
peeled over the earth. Like separate 
globules of quicksilver, instinct with a 
cohesive power, they are ever claiming 
affinity, and ever ready to amalgamate. 
Geography, arms, genius, politics, and 
foreign help do not explain their exist- 
ence ; time, and climate, and custom 
equally fail to unravel it. None of these 
are, or can be, the springs of their per- 
petuity. They have been spread over 
every part of the habitable globe ; they 
have lived under the reign of every dy- 
nasty ; they have shared the protection 
of just laws, and the oppression of laws 
cruel and unjust; they have used every 
tongue, and lived in every latitude. The 
snows of Lapland have chilled, and the 
suns of Africa have scorched them. They 
have drank of the Tiber, the Thames, 
the Jordan, and the Mississippi. In every 
country, and in every degree of latitude 
and longitude, we find a Jew r . It is not so, 
it has never been so, with any other race. 



j6 BIBLE BULWARKS. 

Empires the most illustrious have fallen, 
and buried the men that constructed them, 
but the Jew has lived among the ruins, a 
living monument of indestructibility. Per- 
secution has unsheathed the sword, and 
kindled the fagot ; Papal superstition 
and Moslem barbarism have smitten 
them with unsparing ferocity ; penal re- 
scripts and deep prejudice have visited 
on them most unrighteous chastise- 
ments ; and, notwithstanding all, they 
survive. " 

If there were millions of drops of wa- 
ter in the ocean, say, if you please, of a 
red color, to distinguish them ; if these 
drops were identically the same, with the 
other drops of the ocean, in the elements 
of their constitution, and in the laws 
which governed them ; if these drops 
had been there for long ages past ; if 
they were found flowing in all the cur- 
rents of the ocean, descending to its pro- 
foundest depths, dashed up on all its 
shores, and penetrating to its remotest 



BIBLE BULWARKS. JJ 

outspreadings, and yet never mingling 
with the other drops, but each of those 
millions retaining its own minute rotun- 
dity, as a distinct, peculiar, individual red 
drop, — -this would be a case parallel to 
that of the Jews, in their continued pre- 
servation, as a scattered but distinct and 
separate people. It is a standing mira- 
cle, without a parallel in all the wonders 
of our world. 

Lord Rochester lived long in infidelity, 
but there was one argument in favor of 
Christianity which he frankly confessed 
that he never could set aside, viz., the 
existing state and circumstances of the 
yewish people. 

It was forcibly replied, by the great 
Conde, to some infidel objections, that 
" it was perfectly vain to assail the credi- 
bility of the Christian revelation while 
so singular a miracle as that of the ex- 
isting Jewish people could be alleged in 
its support." 

It was the verdict of one acquainted 



78 BIBLE BULWARKS. 

with the value of evidence, the late Lord 
Chancellor Erskine, that " the universal 
dispersion of the Jews throughout the 
world, and their wondrous preservation, 
notwithstanding their unexampled per- 
secutions, would be sufficient to estab- 
lish the truth of the Scriptures, if all 
other testimony were sunk to the bottom 
of the sea." 

And so every Jew that walks the earth 
is a living testimony to the divine origin 
of the Bible, more powerful and resist- 
less than any printed volume of evi- 
dences that ever issued from the press. 
The continued preservation of the Jewish 
people, under the circumstances which 
have marked their history, is an effect 
for which you can see no adequate cause, 
if you deny the divine origin of the Bible. 
But if you admit that God is the author, 
and connect His almighty power and 
wisdom with it, then you have a cause at 
work fully adequate to produce an effect 
as stupendous as this standing miracle 



BIBLE BULWARKS. 79 

of Israel's preservation, under circum- 
stances in which no other people have 
ever been so marvellously preserved. 

And now we have finished our survey 
of these " bulwarks of the Bible/' The 
enemies of Revelation have thundered 
away at them for ages. But without 
effect. Not only have they never been 
demolished ; but no breach has ever been 
made in one of them. They stand to-day, 
as they have always stood, invincible in 
the omnipotence of Him who built them. 
And, in view of the strength of these bul- 
warks, I ask all who may calmly survey 
them with me, to take the Bible, with 
unfaltering confidence, as the book of 
God. 

It merits this confidence for what it is 
in itself. The best description of the 
Bible I ever met with is contained in a 
paper that was found, some years ago, 
nameless and dateless, in the famous 
Westminster Abbey, in London. But, 
though its author is unknown, it deserves 



80 BIBLE BULWARKS. 

the serious consideration of all thought- 
ful people for the words of preeminent 
wisdom which it utters. Thus it speaks : 
" A nation would be truly happy if it 
were governed by no other laws than 
those of this blessed book. It contains 
everything needful to be known or done. 
It gives instruction to a senate, authority 
and direction to a magistrate. It cau- 
tions a witness, requires an impartial 
verdict of a jury, and furnishes the judge 
with his sentence. It sets the husband 
as the lord of the household, and the wife 
as the mistress of the table; tells him 
how to rule, and her as well how to man- 
age. It entails honor to parents, and to 
children it enjoins obedience. It pre- 
scribes and limits the sway of the sov- 
ereign, the rule of the ruler, and the au- 
thority of the master ; — commands the 
subjects to honor, and the servants to 
obey, and ensures the blessing and pro- 
tection of the Almighty to all that walk 
by its rule. It gives directions for wed- 



BIBLE BULWARKS. 8l 

dings and burials. It promises food and 
raiment, and limits the use of both. It 
points out a faithful and eternal guardian 
to the departing husband and father ; 
tells him with whom to leave his father- 
less children, and whom his widow is to 
trust ; and promises a father to the former 
and a husband to the latter. It teaches a 
man how to set his house in order, and 
how to make his will ; it appoints a dowry 
for his wife, entails the right of the first- 
born, and shows how the younger 
branches shall be left. It defends the 
right of all, and reveals vengeance to 
every defaulter, overreacher, and tres- 
passer. It is the first book, and the best 
book. It contains the choicest matter — 
gives the best instruction — and affords 
the highest degree of pleasure and satis- 
faction to be found on earth. It contains 
the best laws, and the most profound 
mysteries, that were ever penned ; and it 
brings the very best comforts to the in- 
quiring and disconsolate. It is a brief 



82 BIBLE BULWARKS. 

recital of all that is to come. It exhibits 
life and immortality from time everlast- 
ing, and shows the way to glory. It set- 
tles all matters in debates, resolves all 
doubts, and eases the mind and con- 
science of all their scruples. It reveals 
the only living and true God, and shows 
the way to Him. It sets aside all other 
gods, and describes the vanity of them, 
and of all that trust in them. It is a 
book of law^s to show right and wrong ; 
of wisdom that condemns all folly and 
makes the foolish w r ise : a book of truth 
that detects all lies, and confronts all 
errors. It is a book of life that shows the 
way from everlasting death. It contains 
the most ancient antiquities, and strange 
events, the most wonderful occurrences, 
the most heroic deeds, and unparalleled 
wars. It describes the celestial, terres- 
trial, and infernal worlds — the origin of 
the angelic myriads, the human tribes, 
and the legions of fallen angels. It will 
instruct the most accomplished me- 



BIBLE BULWARKS. 83 

chanic, and the most profound critic. It 
is the best covenant that ever was agreed 
on ; the best deed that ever was drawn ; 
the best evidence that ever was pro- 
duced ; and the best will that ever can 
be signed. To understand it, is to be 
wise indeed ; to be ignorant of it, is to 
be destitute of true wisdom. It is the 
king's best model, the magistrate's best 
rule, the housekeeper's best guide, the 
servant's best directory, and the young 
man's best companion. It is the school- 
boy's spelling - book, and the learned 
man's masterpiece. It contains a choice 
grammar for the novice, and a profound 
mystery for the sage. It is the ignorant 
man's dictionary, and the wise man's di- 
rectory. It affords knowledge of witty 
inventions for the humorous, and dark 
sayings for the grave, and is also its own 
interpreter. It encourages the wise; the 
w T arrior and the swift it overcomes ; it 
promises an eternal reward to the excel- 
lent, the conqueror, the winner, and the 



84 BIBLE BULWARKS. 

prevalent And that which crowns all is, 
that the Author is without partiality and 
hypocrisy — One in whom ' there is no 
variableness, neither shadow of turn- 
ing.'» 

For what it is in itself, such a book de- 
mands, and is entitled to, the confidence 
and reverence of every serious, thought- 
ful, and right-minded man. 

In view of what the Bible has passed 
through, it justly deserves our confidence. 
Wicked men in every age have united 
their aims and efforts to destroy the 
Bible, but without effect. " Suppose," 
says Dr. Cumming, " a man were to come 
into our assembly, who had survived 
eighteen centuries of persecution; who 
had been often cast into the seas, but 
never drowned ; who had been often 
thrown into the fires, but was never 
burned ; who had often been thrown to 
the wild beasts, but was never torn to 
pieces; to whom the deadliest poison had 
often been administered, but without in- 



BIBLE BULWARKS. 85 

jury ; could you not say, that God must 
have sustained that man by a continuous 
miracle ? Well, the Bible is this man. 
It has passed through just such an ex- 
perience. The power of kings, the pride 
of nobles, the prejudices of priests; all 
that learning could snatch from the treas- 
ures of the past ; all that wit could invent, 
or wickedness wield, have been hurled 
against it ; but all have recoiled, broken, 
and lie as trophies at its feet. As soon 
may the buzzing of the bees overturn 
the giant oak in which they hive, or the 
cawing of the sea-bird uproot the ever- 
lasting rocks, against which the waves 
of the ocean dash themselves, as any 
assaults of men overthrow the Bible." 

" Truth, crushed to earth, will rise again, — 
The eternal years of God are hers ; 
But error, wounded, writhes with pain, 
And dies amidst her worshippers. ' ' 

"The Bible has been buried in the 
floods, yet not drowned; it has been 



86 BIBLE BULWARKS. 

thrown into the fires, yet not burned ; it 
has been exposed to the pestilential in- 
fluence of a corrupt and superstitious 
faith, and yet not poisoned ; and now, in 
this nineteenth century, it comes forth 
from the opposition and persecution of 
eighteen hundred years, like virgin gold 
that has been cast into the furnace, more 
bright and beautiful than when it en- 
tered." In view of what it has passed 
through, this Bible deserves your confi- 
dence. 

And then, in view of what we must be- 
lieve if we reject the Bible, we should give 
it our cordial confidence. 

I know not who it was who prepared 
what has been published as the creed of 
infidelity. But it is well and truthfully 
done. Look at this creed, and then at 
that in which all true Christians unite, as 
we set them side by side. Here is the 
creed of the infidel : 

" I believe that there is no God, but 
that matter is God, and God is matter ; 



BIBLE BULWARKS. 87 

and that it is no matter whether there is 
any God or not. 

" I believe also that the world was not . 
made ; that it made itself; that it had no 
beginning ; that it will last forever, world 
without end. 

" I believe that man is a beast ; that 
the soul is the body, and the body the 
soul ; and that after death there is neither 
body nor soul. 

" I believe that there is no religion ; 
that natural religion is the only religion; 
and that all religion is unnatural. 

" I believe not in Moses ; I believe in 
the first philosophy. 

" I believe not in the Evangelists ; I 
believe in Chubbs, Toland, Tindal, Mor- 
gan, Mandeville, Woolston, Hobbes, 
Shaftsbury; I believe not St. Paul. I 
believe not Revelation ; I believe in tra- 
dition. I believe in the Talmud ; I be- 
lieve not the Bible ; I believe in Soc- 
rates ; I believe in Sanchoniathon. I 
believe in Mahomet; I believe not in 



88 BIBLE BULWARKS. 

Christ. Lastly, I believe in all unbe- 
lief." 

And then, in contrast to this, look at 
the simple but sublime creed of the 
Christian. It comes down to us from 
the early ages of the Church, and Chris- 
tians everywhere agree in the truths it 
sets forth : "I believe in God, the Father 
Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth. 
And in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our 
Lord ; who was conceived by the Holy 
Ghost, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered 
under Pontius Pilate; was crucified, dead, 
and buried ; He descended into hell ; the 
third day He rose from the dead ; He 
ascended into heaven, and sitteth on the 
right hand. of God the Father Almighty; 
from thence He shall come to judge both 
the quick and the dead. I believe in the 
Holy Ghost; the holy catholic church, 
the communion of saints ; the forgive- 
ness of sins ; the resurrection of the 
body, and the life everlasting." 

Which of these two creeds is the more 



BIBLE BULWARKS. 89 

reasonable? the more sensible? Which 
is the more elevating and satisfying ? 
Which is the more worthy of a great, and 
wise, and good God ? and which the more 
suitable to the wants and necessities of 
poor, w r eak, erring, sinful man ? Can we 
compare them for a moment, and think 
of the darkness and difficulties that en- 
circle us in this vale of tears, without turn- 
ing to the Christian, as he stands by this 
wondrous book, and saying : " Whither 
thou goest, I will go ; w^here thou lodg- 
est, I will lodge ; thy people shall be 
my people ; thy God shall be my God," 
and thy Bible shall be my Bible ? 

THINK WHAT WE HAVE IN THE BIBLE. 

"A mine of wealth, where every one may toil, 

And for his pains grow rich in golden spoil. 

M A living spring, with waters running free, 
Where all who thirst may drink unstintedly. 

" A glowing suriy whose light and warmth are shed, 
For wandering souls, whose light and warmth 
are fled. 
8* 



90 BIBLE BULWARKS. 

" A lavish feast, and all wayfarers wooed, 
No price in hand, to eat immortal food. 

"A spotless dress, made ready to array 
All pilgrims stained in sin's defiling way. 

"A hand-book true, wUere they who run may 
read, 
To shun what paths, and what safe guides to heed. 

" A passport sure, made out by Christ's own hand, 
For all who seek than earth a better land. 

"Mine, spring, sun, feast, dress, guide, and pass- 
port thou, 
Oh, blessed book! What lacks the traveller 
now?" 



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